I don't know why everyone concedes this point. Out of a relatively small sample at my workplace, I know several people who bought Kindles when they wanted iPads. They would not have bought a PlayBook or an Android tablet or even a Nook at any price. Had there not been the Fire, they would have gotten iPads. I cannot imagine that their numbers are insignificant outside of my workplace.
I'm not saying Apple has to match their prices or (God forbid) sell at a loss, but I am absoutely positive that the Fire cost Apple sales.

Yes, but what do those people think of those Kindles after they've owned them for 6 months and compared them to their friends'/coworkers' iPads?

Sure, Fires are great for video watching and book reading--nice and compact--but you can't do productivity apps well because the screen is too small. Or, at least, you can't use it almost as your main machine the way you can with an iPad.

If Fire owners want to do much more than consume media on their Fires (and I'm guessing the I-got-this-Fire-instead-of-an-iPad-because-it's-cheaper owners are the most likely to), then they will tire of the Fire (and any 7" tablet) soon enough.

Worst case they are identical i.e. no interaction and with the same text and images (given text books are all in digital format these days for printing so that's a no brainer).

The next step is being almost the same only they get better with interaction and movies.

The last step is the really cool use of iBook's full potential which will come over time.

The great thing is even the worst case, (that being nothing more than a PDF would be made of the book) is that unlike a PDF it can be updated via the iBook Store. Just imagine a book automatically getting new data added is it comes known ... a country changes its name and your map updates! Automatic notes pointing out recent changes etc. It is Harry Potter magic for real.

This is a major improvement on printed books and if you can't see that then I have to call Luddite on you

I'm up to my eyeballs in this digital textbook adventure. There are no answers at this time to the size of the books. If you start buying single chapters and swapping them out you lose the ability to review earlier chapters, cause a file management nightmare, and where do you put those swapped out chapters for use next year?

Downloading the books can take days even on a reasonably fast connection. Then multiply that by 100s of iPads at the beginning of each semester. The additional cost of IT staff and infrastructure could potentially cancel out the savings gained by not using printed books.

Modern science and social studies textbooks are very elaborate. We've been working extremely hard on the logistics and work flow design for our iBooks Author project, since shortly after the announcement. At this point there are a lot more questions than answers.

Useless statistic. What people say they will do is always very different from what they do do. Ask me if I will upgrade my iMac this year and I am sure to tell you yes... that is my wish and intention and definitely my need. But ask me again at year's end if I did and you will in all likelihood get a different answer.

I don't disagree but it just isn't Apple to retain an older product at a lower price (other for education or limited time only) when they have a newer one at the same price they used to sell the older one

... except they're doing exactly that for the last 2 generations of the iPhone.

Check out the 9 paid books sometime. I think the Apple Stores might have some installed as demos. They are as good as printed material but offer interactive functions that add a level of learning not previously had. Something a teacher might take several minutes to explain can be understand quickly with the ability to see a model in 3D or watch how its motion works.

You guys are jumping to an extreme. There is no all or nothing scenario to worry about. You could have just one course with a digital textbook and have printed material for your other courses. Or publishers could have books that are exactly the same (page for page, except for minor corrections) so that students can choose the option that works best for them. It's silly to say that it will 10GB per book and to use one means you have to use 8 books. That's not how technology progresses.

Well that is not how it works with unified school districts in California. The books we are working on need to be exactly equivalent in every aspect to the printed ones in order to qualify. It is 10 lbs. of potatoes in a 5 lb sack.

I'm up to my eyeballs in this digital textbook adventure. There are no answers at this time to the size of the books. If you start buying single chapters and swapping them out you lose the ability to review earlier chapters, cause a file management nightmare, and where do you put those swapped out chapters for use next year?

Downloading the books can take days even on a reasonably fast connection. Then multiply that by 100s of iPads at the beginning of each semester. The additional cost of IT staff and infrastructure could potentially cancel out the savings gained by not using printed books.

Modern science and social studies textbooks are very elaborate. We've been working extremely hard on the logistics and work flow design for our iBooks Author project, since shortly after the announcement. At this point there are a lot more questions than answers.

The files are too damn big!

These are certainly concerns for schools and publishers wanting to embrace digital content but they are no different than other digital hurdles they've faced. Like I said before they will face and conquer these problems one-by-one. You and others are coming across as if you think the entire concept of a digital textbook will never work because paper is inherently better in every way. That simply isn't true. You also need to look at this market. Apple only released iBooks Author and textbooks, what, 5 weeks ago? Go back to 5 weeks after the iPod was announced. That had less chance of surviving.

Look at where the puck is going, not where it's at.

Quote:

@Soli
There are no in app purchases in iBooks.

As of now that is the case.

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I'm up to my eyeballs in this digital textbook adventure. There are no answers at this time to the size of the books. If you start buying single chapters and swapping them out you lose the ability to review earlier chapters, cause a file management nightmare, and where do you put those swapped out chapters for use next year?

Downloading the books can take days even on a reasonably fast connection. Then multiply that by 100s of iPads at the beginning of each semester. The additional cost of IT staff and infrastructure could potentially cancel out the savings gained by not using printed books.

Modern science and social studies textbooks are very elaborate. We've been working extremely hard on the logistics and work flow design for our iBooks Author project, since shortly after the announcement. At this point there are a lot more questions than answers.

The files are too damn big!

@Soli
There are no in app purchases in iBooks.

What is an iBook? It's just a text file with a bunch of videos, pictures, audio, and code. What does that sound like? A web page. So how do web pages handle this (or even iApps)? They download the text first, then the images, then download the video and audio only as users access it.

iBooks could use the same model. It could be a little smarter--say, download the video for the current chapter into a cache, and purge the cache 30 days after it's last accessed.

What 8 courses do students take in one HS semester that will require textbooks (not rhetorical, I want them named)?

The courses, and keep in mind that this is only a sample and not indicative of every student's schedule.

1) English (Possible the class with the smallest book storage requirements since they would be predominately text based. Even the interactive parts.)
2) Math (An excellent candidate for a ton of coding, 3D models, movies, and graphics to cover the interactive parts of the subject. Some courses like Geometry would require more than say Algebra 1.)
3) History (Add in audio, video, and 3D models and these could balloon very quickly.)
4) Science (Likely the course with the largest books considering how much data intensive extras are in the science fields.)
5) Economics (Another course where I don't see the books being that large.)
6) Foreign Language (Another one that would very quickly balloon with large amounts of audio and video.)
7) Fine Arts (Think high resolution images and videos and audio of artist and these could again get rather large.)
8) Health/PE (Okay, this one might not have much in the way of texts, but there is a health text usually and it could be rather large for the same reasons that a biology text would be. Think of the multiple graphics and 3D models of the human body along with interactive videos of exercise and dietary concerns.)

Of course, a usual schedule would likely include a study hall period so many student might only need seven courses a semester. But, there are typically eight periods in a semester for a secondary level student and it is very likely that they could need a text for each period.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SolipsismX

They certainly aren't on the iBookstore.

Not yet, and possibly never. However, you are missing what Apple did that is really the major game changer here. Many of the educators that I have talked to about moving to tablets aren't really that excited about the ability to get eTextbooks from the publishers. They were very excited about the release of iBooks Author though because it allows them to make their own textbooks for their students. Most teachers have collected numerous sources and materials over the years. the prospect for them to combine them into a text that is tailored for their students in their class in their region is what excites them. They are excited about the fact that they can emphasize what they want and skip what they don't want for their students instead of having to accept whatever California and Texas want, since as the two largest education markets are basically what all textbook publishers write their textbooks for.

So, whether the iBookstore ever offers these textbooks is really irrelevant. And actually goes more to support my point that education tablets will need more storage not less as the average teacher is not likely to make their textbooks as space efficient as a major publisher, for several reasons.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SolipsismX

Assuming you are correct there are 8 courses per semester that require large digital textbooks even if they all 1.5GB that will be 12GB, which is well within the acceptable range.

Acceptable? You are making this judgement based on what?

A large part of why the school officials that I have talked to are looking at tablets, or have chosen tablets is not just to turn them into eReaders. They want their students to have scheduling capabilities, web access when needed, one of the art teachers was very excited about the numerous art programs available for the iPad, the chemistry teacher loved the Elements app (which is rather large in its own right), the music teacher wanted the students to use GarageBand, and so on and so forth. The textbook is just the base of what educators are wanting to do with tablets. Anybody who is looking at tablets as eReaders only is completely missing the point and potential of tablets in education. To me, 16GB is a crippling, bare minimum.

[QUOTE=SolipsismX;2059237]How will Apple do 128GB? Smaller lithograph with slower speeds, less write cycles and with greater cost -or- doubling up the number of NAND chips?[/qoute]

I don't know and honestly, I don't care. I cannot tell you how they made their last processor faster or more efficient. I am not an electrical engineer and to make this statement is more than disingenuous. You are basically claiming that nobody can make any claim here unless they can what? Produce a white paper explaining how the Apple engineers would do something? Maybe those millions that they spent on flash development engineers gives them some insight that neither I, nor you have.

Of course, any answer that I give to your strawman setup is just going to open up an opening so I am going to give none and so that I don't care how they do it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SolipsismX

The difference between iOS for the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 have shown that rendering for 2x resolution isn't a huge concern for OS and app sizes.

This is moot.

The scale of increase is way beyond what the iPhone went through and you are neglecting that we are also going to have to consider the rumor that Apple will be moving to 1080p video.

Where the increased resolution of graphics and especially video will add up very quickly.

Don't get me wrong I want iBooks Author to succeed because I have a lot invested in it. It is one thing to imagine the big picture in all its glory, but another thing altogether when you are assigned the job of actually building it, down at the nuts and bolts level, which is where I am.

The scale of increase is way beyond what the iPhone went through and you are neglecting that we are also going to have to consider the rumor that Apple will be moving to 1080p video.

Where the increased resolution of graphics and especially video will add up very quickly.

Seriously? Because the 16GB iPad 2 with a 1024x768 display can support 1080p video output you are making an argument that all video will only added if it's 1080p? Where is the logic in that? iTS and my cable provider still don't offer 1080p so why would you think all textbooks would be 1080p? They don't even have to be 720p or SD to be useful as we can see from history video that will be great for history books.

For the life of me I can't fathom why you are so against digital textbooks. i'm not sure if you are just overwhelmed in thinking that every worst case scenario you have imagined will be included from day one (we are well past day, BTW) or you are just grasping at straws with your argument. If what you say is true about textbooks on the iPad then why are half of the full textbooks under 1.5GB? They could have 1080p video but they didn't because they didn't have it and/or deemed it wasn't needed.

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How will Apple do 128GB? Smaller lithograph with slower speeds, less write cycles and with greater cost -or- doubling up the number of NAND chips?

"Intel and Micron made a multicell 128GB NAND flash memory chip of the type that goes as internal memory in your smartphone and tablet or into microSD memory cards. This is achieved by stacking eight 16GB memory chips densely, and the 128GB memory module will be available in January, with mass production slated for the summer of 2012, meaning we can see mobile devices with this insane storage amount at some point after that."

"Intel and Micron made a multicell 128GB NAND flash memory chip of the type that goes as internal memory in your smartphone and tablet or into microSD memory cards. This is achieved by stacking eight 16GB memory chips densely, and the 128GB memory module will be available in January, with mass production slated for the summer of 2012, meaning we can see mobile devices with this insane storage amount at some point after that."

What is an iBook? It's just a text file with a bunch of videos, pictures, audio, and code. What does that sound like? A web page. So how do web pages handle this (or even iApps)? They download the text first, then the images, then download the video and audio only as users access it.

iBooks could use the same model. It could be a little smarter--say, download the video for the current chapter into a cache, and purge the cache 30 days after it's last accessed.

Think outside the box.

Hey I'm fine with that but that is not how Apple designed it. It is even worse than you might imagine. If you include an image or video on one page and then repeat the same image or video on another page iBooks includes it twice instead of reusing the same object.

Hey I'm fine with that but that is not how Apple designed it. It is even worse than you might imagine. If you include an image or video on one page and then repeat the same image or video on another page iBooks includes it twice instead of reusing the same object.

I don't see this as an issue. It's clearly not the most effective or efficient method but it is only version 1 and I can't see too many scenarios where many of the same images and/or videos would be reused multiple times in the same book to the point that it significantly increases the size. Still, this is something I would expect to be including at some point.

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They are far smaller than that. Here is the breakdown for the 10 textbooks on iBookstore:

929 MB

934 MB

970 MB

1.11 GB

1.22 GB

1.26 GB

1.50 GB

2.31 GB

2.35 GB

2.79 GB

Why are these books so big? I have several 1000+ page medical textbook PDFs that are chock full of images and well under 75MB. Granted, they don't have "interactive features", but are interactive features really the main selling point of a digital textbook?

The convenience of carrying a single iPad instead of several 5+lbs books and the ability to search the full text for every occurrence of a word/topic within a book without resorting to thumbing through the index were what made it worthwhile for me.

I admittedly tend to be conservative with regard to technology and education. I don't think that the vast majority of high school textbooks need any sort of interactive feature. The student's initial job is to attempt to learn the material through reading and creative thinking, and the teacher's job should be to help clarify difficult concepts. In my experience, the largest obstacle to learning is not the inability of the teacher to clarify difficult concepts, but lack of student interest or initiative to attempt to learn any of the material through self-study. Interactive features, in most cases, distract from the methodical sort of study crucial to elementary and secondary school curriculum. If spending money on technology was the answer to declining grades and content mastery, then the internet and broad computer access at home should have led to tremendous advances in both...but it hasn't.

Why are these books so big? I have several 1000+ page medical textbook PDFs that are chock full of images and well under 75MB. Granted, they don't have "interactive features", but are interactive features really the main selling point of a digital textbook?

The convenience of carrying a single iPad instead of several 5+lbs books and the ability to search the full text for every occurrence of a word/topic within a book without resorting to thumbing through the index were what made it worthwhile for me.

I admittedly tend to be conservative with regard to technology and education. I don't think that the vast majority of high school textbooks need any sort of interactive feature. The student's initial job is to attempt to learn the material through reading and creative thinking, and the teacher's job should be to help clarify difficult concepts. In my experience, the largest obstacle to learning is not the inability of the teacher to clarify difficult concepts, but lack of student interest or initiative to attempt to learn any of the material through self-study. Interactive features, in most cases, distract from the methodical sort of study crucial to elementary and secondary school curriculum. If spending money on technology was the answer to declining grades and content mastery, then the internet and broad computer access at home should have led to tremendous advances in both...but it hasn't.

Formatting, interactive features, and quality of images and videos. I suspect that a proper medical textbook for a college level course will be much larger than the sizes for the current HS textbooks listed above.

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...The Kindle Fire selling units is not an issue for Apple if it means that to compete they would lose profit. That's a fool's errand.
....

How do you know they would loose money on a $299 iPad? iSupply tear downs suggest that isn't the case. Obviously they wouldn't make as much profit but a $299 might sell a lot of units and new users might upgrade to the latest and greatest version down the road.

How do you know they would loose money on a $299 iPad? iSupply tear downs suggest that isn't the case. Obviously they wouldn't make as much profit but a $299 might sell a lot of units and new users might upgrade to the latest and greatest version down the road.

How do you know they would loose money on a $299 iPad? iSupply tear downs suggest that isn't the case. Obviously they wouldn't make as much profit but a $299 might sell a lot of units and new users might upgrade to the latest and greatest version down the road.

Q: Johnny has 10 Apples to sell. He sells them at $3 each with a profit of $2 per Apple. How much profit does Johnny make?
A: $20

Q: Johnny has 10 Apples to sell. He sells them at $2 each with a profit of $1 per Apple. How much profit does Johnny make?
A: $10

Q: Johnny will sell all 10 Apples at either price. Which price is better for Johnny's bottom line?
A: ???

This bot has been removed from circulation due to a malfunctioning morality chip.

I don't see this as an issue. It's clearly not the most effective or efficient method but it is only version 1 and I can't see too many scenarios where many of the same images and/or videos would be reused multiple times in the same book to the point that it significantly increases the size. Still, this is something I would expect to be including at some point.

Well perhaps not a video. That is just an example of gross inefficiency but we do have chapter header graphic and subtopic header graphics that repeat on almost every single page. Same background image over and over.

Well perhaps not a video. That is just an example of gross inefficiency but we do have chapter header graphic and subtopic header graphics that repeat on almost every single page. Same background image over and over.

What are the sizes for these images and how many pages are in your book. Better yet, what is the added book size for this inefficiency?

PS: The biggest issue I see for iBooks/iBooks Author right now is that 1) you have to test it on an iPad which means keeping it connected, and 2) You can't read iBooks on the Mac. Both of these limitations seem odd to me.

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Hey I'm fine with that but that is not how Apple designed it. It is even worse than you might imagine. If you include an image or video on one page and then repeat the same image or video on another page iBooks includes it twice instead of reusing the same object.

Sure, but you don't know how Apple processes it after you upload it. Maybe they strip out the duplicate copy. Or maybe they will in the future.

What I was suggesting is what Apple might do in the future. I don't think it caches stuff now--it just downloads everything, as you say.

What is an iBook? It's just a text file with a bunch of videos, pictures, audio, and code. What does that sound like? A web page. So how do web pages handle this (or even iApps)? They download the text first, then the images, then download the video and audio only as users access it.

iBooks could use the same model. It could be a little smarter--say, download the video for the current chapter into a cache, and purge the cache 30 days after it's last accessed.

Think outside the box.

Good response. I still think there will be a storage problem at some point fairly soon after digital textbooks gets going. Perhaps anobit will play a role. Maybe we'll get to add storage to the device someday and it will be able to manage the different cards along with the web where available. I often wonder what rural areas will be able to do. Wonder when the glass pipes are ready for delivery from sea to shining sea?

What is really factored into the price is a kind of perpetual sense of disbelief that any company could be as good as Apple is. ~Retrogusto

Well perhaps not a video. That is just an example of gross inefficiency but we do have chapter header graphic and subtopic header graphics that repeat on almost every single page. Same background image over and over.

I hope you will report this to Apple so they can fix it. Most animation software has the concept of a numbered 'instance' of an object which are just references to the original object/image, instead of multiple copies of the actual image repeated over and over. To save space in the file.

What is really factored into the price is a kind of perpetual sense of disbelief that any company could be as good as Apple is. ~Retrogusto

For the life of me I can't fathom why you are so against digital textbooks. i'm not sure if you are just overwhelmed in thinking that every worst case scenario you have imagined will be included from day one (we are well past day, BTW) or you are just grasping at straws with your argument. If what you say is true about textbooks on the iPad then why are half of the full textbooks under 1.5GB? They could have 1080p video but they didn't because they didn't have it and/or deemed it wasn't needed.

Wow! Somewhere between what I wanted to convey and what you extracted from my post there is a HUGE disconnect.

I am not at all against eTextbooks. In fact, I have been a major proponent at our local school district to adopt tablets and eTextbooks. I love the idea of eTextbooks and tablets.

What I am trying to get across is the reality of the way that schools are and have been implementing eTextbooks and tablets. Also, I am trying to convey how the teachers that I know are planning on implementing self-made eTextbooks.

And from what I have seen done and being discussed the 16GB iPad is a bare minimum in local storage that is acceptable and has invariably led to sacrifices in their implementation. Thus, many new proposals that I have heard about have been for 32GBs of storage based on current school's usage and projected future eTextbook features.

You have to keep in mind that most schools plan on a four or five year life for the tablets that they purchase. This means that they cannot simply look at what is out now, but try to predict what is likely to exist in the next four to five years.

Given the high likelihood that the iPad will implement a retina display in their iPad within the next handful of years then it is also highly likely that eTextbooks will take advantage of the increased resolution to include higher definition video and graphics, will in turn lead to larger sized eTextbooks.

This is not meant as a point against eTextbooks, this is simply to inform about what I have been a part of and privy to regarding many local school's usage or plans for tablets and eTextbooks. And as part of that knowledge I see the 16GB lower end of local storage as becoming a version that will not be acceptable as an educational version of tablet due to its amount of local storage.

On a related note, no school considers cloud storage as an acceptable substitute for local storage as there are some students who do not have access to the internet at their homes. If a school moves to a digital version of their educational material than they have to insure that all students have access to their materials, which is not achievable when relying on an internet connection.

With Apple expected to introduce its third-generation iPad next week, a survey of consumers not planning to buy an iPad shows that 20 percent would change their minds and buy an iPad 2 if Apple continues to sell last year's model for $100 less.
...
Among those who indicated they were not planning to buy an iPad 2 in the next 90 days, 20 percent indicated they would be "likely" to buy Apple's second-generation tablet if it were sold for $399 and up.

What were they asked?
If it was $100 less or if it was $399 and up?
I know it means the same but how a question worded will definitely change the outcome.

PS: The biggest issue I see for iBooks/iBooks Author right now is that 1) you have to test it on an iPad which means keeping it connected, and 2) You can't read iBooks on the Mac. Both of these limitations seem odd to me.

Yeah, I have never been able to figure out why Apple doesn't allow for reading their iBooks on a Mac. Heck, they need to make it so that users can read their iBooks on a Window's computer. Think about how poorly the iPod would have done if users couldn't listen to their music on their computer, especially Window's computers.

I accept jragosta's reasoning but I think your example above misses the point.

Apple should be striving for a Windows type market share in tablets. That means choking competitors like the Kindle in their infancy.

1) The Kindle Fire loses money on every sale. Have you seen Amazon's profits? Have you seen their revenue? Have you seen their P/E? The only area that Apple needs to be concerned with in regards to Amazon is eBooks.

2) If Apple wanted "Windows type market share" in anything they would have licensed their OSes a lot time ago. Fortunately for Apple and those that are invested with them they don't want marketshare at the expense of profit. Note that Apple, with around 5% PC market share is by far the most profitable PC maker in the world.

3) You don't cook your magic beans with the goose that lays the golden eggs. (Still working on the phrasing).

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1) The Kindle Fire loses money on every sale. Have you seen Amazon's profits? Have you seen their revenue? Have you seen their P/E? The only area that Apple needs to be concerned with in regards to Amazon is eBooks.

2) If Apple wanted "Windows type market share" in anything they would have licensed their OSes a lot time ago. Fortunately for Apple and those that are invested with them they don't want marketshare at the expense of profit. Note that Apple, with around 5% PC market share is by far the most profitable PC maker in the world.

3) You don't cook your magic beans with the goose that lays the golden eggs. (Still working on the phrasing).

1) Yes I understand that Amazon looses money on every Kindle they sell. And I have seen their profits, (oddly Amazon has a higher P/E, not sure why) ect .... But Apple should sell a lower cost iPad to try to blunt any momentum the Kindle is gaining. Perhaps a $299 isn't possible but a sub $500 iPad 2 certainly is possible that can still be profitable. Remember that Amazon does not have the same cost structure and economy of scale in manufacturing that Apple enjoys.

2) I don't accept that Apple can't get a Windows type market share all on their own. I think Apple are uniquely positioned to be capable of achieving this but will have to address the low end of the tablet market to some degree while still maintaining some profitability. Yes Apple are very profitable and have engineered a remarkable turn around over the last decade. But some of that is related to missteps on MS's part. If they hadn't had some tremendous mis-streps Apple might very well be a niche player struggling to scratch out an existence.